FICT students win first runner-up at National UMPSA–Huawei AppGallery Mobile App Competition 2025

A team of students from the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology (FICT) made UTAR proud by securing first runner-up at the 4th UMPSA x Huawei AppGallery Mobile App Competition 2025, a prestigious national innovation challenge jointly organised by Universiti Malaysia Pahang Al-Sultan Abdullah (UMPSA) and Huawei AppGallery, in collaboration with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC).

Representing UTAR under the team name MeowResQ, the winning students were:
• Yee Jia Hao, Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours)
• Lim Aun Chir, Bachelor of Information Systems (Honours) Business Information Systems
• Elaine Chung Hui Lin, Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours)

The team impressed judges with their AI-driven mobile application, MySafeZone, earning them a position among the Top 10 finalists in the Track B Innovation Mobile App Product Competition and ultimately securing first runner-up at the Grand Finale held on 19 November 2025 at the UMPSA Pekan Campus.

The team walked away with a certificate of excellence and three units of Huawei MatePad 11 WiFi. Developed in under a month, MySafeZone is a safety-focused mobile application designed to support personal wellbeing using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) toolkit. The app incorporates intelligent features that help users detect potential risks and access safety information more efficiently, aligning with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to community safety and sustainable cities.

The app is now available for public download on Huawei AppGallery.

The UMPSA–Huawei AppGallery Mobile App Competition is recognised as a key national platform that nurtures innovative mobile solutions and strengthens collaboration between academia and industry. Guided by the theme “World-Shaping Mobile Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) for Global Sustainability,” the competition challenges participants to design next-generation apps that contribute positively to society.

The competition schedule included online briefings, technical workshops, preliminary judging, and a final pitching session before a panel of academic and industry experts.

Despite joining at a later stage, having only received the invitation in early October, the FICT team demonstrated exceptional teamwork, technical agility, and creativity in presenting a polished and impactful solution.

Their supervising lecturer, Mr Tan Chiang Kang @ Thang Chiang Kang from FICT’s Department of Computer Science, expressed pride in the students’ achievement. “The team displayed outstanding dedication, especially considering the limited time they had to develop the app. Their ability to apply AI and HMS technologies effectively reflects the strong technical foundation that UTAR nurtures in its students.”

The team leader, Yee, shared, “This inter-university competition not only provided us with an excellent platform to apply the technical skills we have picked up; it also pushed us out of our comfort zone to present our idea and to convince the judges that our published application is capable of making a real-world impact. It was an invaluable experience for the three of us, and a great honour to make UTAR proud on a national stage.”

This achievement highlights UTAR’s ongoing commitment to nurturing industry-ready graduates with strong technical competencies and creative problem-solving skills. FICT continues to encourage students to participate in competitions and talent-development programmes that support Malaysia’s advancement in IR4.0 technologies.